


New Rules

by miscfics (twowritehands)



Series: Time Trap [1]
Category: Time Trap (2017)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:14:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27747301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twowritehands/pseuds/miscfics
Summary: Now that they are two thousand years into the future, their professor/student love affair is going to change.
Relationships: Taylor/Jason Hopper
Series: Time Trap [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029750
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	New Rules

Taylor offered his hand to Hopper to help him out of the water. The professor was soaking wet, but whole and hale. Taylor couldn't believe it.

Hopper was also understandably stunned. His jaw was slack and his eyes were glued to the three others over at the next pool. His parents and his kid sister, all three alive and well.

Taylor swelled with excitement for Hopper. There was so much to tell him.

Jackie put a towel around Hopper's shoulders. He gripped it but otherwise didn't acknowledge anyone but his estranged family across the room.

Taylor felt kind of invisible, but he knew that it all had to be emotionally pretty complex. Hopper was alive when he would remember bleeding out. (Taylor certainly remembered a caveman fist knocking his lights out for good.) Hopper was misplaced in time  _ and space _ and his parents were in the room with him, now younger than he was. Unchanged from his last memories of them, even.

The others wrapped Furby in a towel and hurried him to the window to look at earth. Hopper wasn't interested in the view from the window. He watched his parents cry and hug and kiss his sister. He didn't go to them or talk to them.

Taylor stood shoulder to shoulder with Hopper, pretending not to see the tears in his eyes as everyone else chattered excitedly about the futuristic world they found themselves in.

The door opened and a scientist strode in. He met the Hoppers with eager greetings in stilted English. He was eight feet tall, and pale. His long white lab coat was unmistakable. Taylor knew him to be called Furnsbynn and he was one of five people on this Arc that could speak the ancient languages, English being one of them.

Mr. and Mrs. Hopper were bewildered by the giant as he led them away. They glanced curiously at Taylor, Hopper and the others and smiled politely, but Furnsbynn answered their questions with quick dismissive sidesteps and hurried them away. He winked at Hopper as he went. As if saying, you'll get to introduce yourself soon.

When they were gone, Hopper exhaled as if for the first time. Taylor sensed the man finally relaxing and knew it when he finally looked at him. Taylor tried to play it cool as he looked over and met Hopper's eyes. 

The eyes he thought he'd never see again.

Hopper smiled. Taylor smiled. Then it didn't matter that the others were still in the room--granted, they were over at the window looking down on earth, but still--because Taylor's will to keep certain things private broke and he simply flung his arms around Hopper.

Hopper hugged him back. Strong arms, wet but warm with life. Holding so tight. Taylor couldn't believe he still had him. Two thousand years lost in time, no parents or cousins or classmates left but  _ he still had Hopper _ .

Was it luck or fate? Did it matter?

The hug went on, longer than they would otherwise ever allow in public. Not if they both wanted to stay employees at the university. Hopper's hand cupped the back of Taylor's head. A gesture usually left to stolen moments and secret nights. It brought tears to Taylor's eyes, and he pressed his face to Hopper's shoulder. He gripped the back of Hopper's neck in return.

A throat clear sent them both stepping back. Jackie had turned from the window and lifted an eyebrow at her misbehaving professor. Cara had turned, too, and she looked slightly gob smacked but recovered quickly enough. Furby and Veeves were still looking down at earth, tracing the changed coast lines.

Taylor shot them pleading looks and they both gracefully sidestepped any opportunity to comment. Hopper seemed as relieved as Taylor.

Later, after they had departed from The Arc in a Mars bound ship, Taylor rounded a corner in the massive transport ship and found Hopper leaning in a viewport, looking out into the vast expanse of foreign space. The others were still exploring. 

Hopper was dry and in new clothes. A futuristic breathable fabric with straps that accented a well formed torso. He had a tan line on his wrist from his watch and something about it stunned Taylor. He never realized it was there. The watch had never come off even if everything else did...

What else did he not know?

It'd been a day since he woke up. Hopper had spent the time with his parents and sister. Taylor had resolved to give the man some time to catch up with his family in private. But finding him now without them shocked Taylor and then hurt his feelings.

Hopper had yet to seek Taylor out... Not even for a quick,  _ hey thanks for saving me _ ... And it seemed he wasn't planning on it.

Burning with questions and desire and fear, Taylor joined Hopper at the window.

"Thought you were having a family day." Taylor said brightly.

"My sister is still sick. The giants say it's not terminal anymore but it's still a long road to recovery. Mom and Dad are helping her prepare for the first round of treatment. I think my presence was making her uncomfortable so I made my exit."

"I'm glad medicine has caught up to her needs."

"You can say that again--god, what a mind fuck," Hopper burst with an exasperated huff.

"Yeah but you found each other." Taylor said past the bitterness. He knew the ugly emotion was petty and pointless. What a shitty thing, to be bitter about the long lost parents of an orphan. "And that's so amazing."

"It's a lot," Hopper said. "But... We've made a start."

"Good."

Silence fell between them. Once upon a time, Taylor liked how they could work or sit or eat quietly together, no need to fill the silence. He wasn't sure this was the same thing.

He wasn't sure about anything anymore.

"Why didn't you tell me?" Taylor asked suddenly into the quiet.

Hopper closed his eyes with an exhale, as if it was the question he had been hoping wouldn't be asked. Taylor steeled himself for a let down.

"I thought it was such a lost cause..." Hopper shook his head. "The whole thing was only meant to bring some closure. I thought they were a pile of scattered bones. I'd find them, say a prayer. Maybe bury them. It was... private."

Ouch. Taylor swallowed. "I get it. I just..." he had to say it, no matter how awkward. "I kinda thought we were starting to... you know, share the really private stuff." he felt like a fool. Chasing the older man into a cave, into a new millennia, and all the while that man never wanted him to follow. "I mean, I told you all about my stuff with my--my dad and everything...." his voice gave him away, the raw hurt in it. But he couldn't help it. Referencing that night, when they'd lain in the sheets and whispered their secrets to each other, it made it all too real. 

Made this fizzle out ending way, way too real.

Hopper turned from the stunning star field and he reached out and clasped Taylor's arm.

"Hey. Hey. C'mere." Hopper drew Taylor in close and pressed a kiss to his forehead. "I told you that my folks went missing and were presumed dead. That's not something I just tell people. I thought you knew that."

"I--I thought I did, but to not tell me they were the missing hippies we've been looking for on our hikes..." 

Hopper took Taylor's hands. "I didn't tell you that because... I don't know. I wish I had an easy explanation. I think I was waiting until I found them? I don't know, Tay. I'm sorry I hurt you."

Taylor hugged him. Tightly. And he was overjoyed when Hopper returned the embrace with equal fervor. 

"I've missed you." Taylor gasped. It was a little too wet sounding. He sniffed self consciously.

Hopper laughed. His great, full throated little laugh. "What? Come on, it's been like 28 hours since I saw you in my driveway."

Wow. Yeah. Total mind fuck. "No, for me it's been about a week. Two days before I convinced the others to go looking for you, about a day running around in the caves and then two days in the arc waiting for you to wake up. Then you had time with your family...."

Hopper looked absolutely bewildered. "Jesus...." he stepped closer. "I had no idea... For me it's been a day. A long, crazy day but... Just a day." He held the back of Taylor's head again. "Christ, has it really been a week for you?"

Taylor laughed. He let their foreheads touch. Tears dropped off his eyelashes and he didn't care. "Yeah. Yeah it feels like forever."

"Sweetheart," Hopper whispered. "I never dreamed it all happened differently for you. A week? Seriously, six days? Are you sure?"

"Wait a minute, we tell you it's been two thousand years since we went missing and you take that in stride but this is what trips you up?"

Laughing, Hopper held him under the ears and traced thumbs down his jawline. "Well, yeah. The fountain of youth, time travel. The way the years blinked by outside the cave, the two thousand years makes sense but... I don't know. What was hours to me was days for you that... I don't know. I don't like that."

Taylor laughed.

Hopper gasped and held him closer "Thank Fuck we're still together," Hopper whispered. "Finding them wouldn't be worth it if it meant losing you."

At long last, Hopper's mouth sealed over Taylor's. A tight knot of worry behind his breastplate unraveled. Taylor sighed into the kiss and parted his lips, and let him in. They were still kissing when a squeal sent them pulling apart like before.

It was Veeves, covering her eyes. "Ew! Get a room next time, guys!"

Hopper looked momentarily panicked but Taylor slipped an arm across his lower back. "Grow up, Veeves. It's just kissing."

"But he's your teacher!"

Hopper stepped forward with his hands up in surrender. "Nothing happened until he became my TA! But the university has rules and I can lose my job if--well, shit. " He sagged and laughed. "I guess none of that is the case anymore is it?"

Taylor stepped forward, putting his arm back around him. "Well the university was torn down about five hundred years before that part of the continent crumbled into the ocean. So yeah, Jace. Safe to say we don't have to tiptoe around their rules anymore."

Hopper passed a hand over his eyes with a disbelieving huff. "I keep thinking we'll somehow go back to our normal lives after all of this."

"All of this is the new normal. It has to be."

They had dinner in a spaceship cafeteria sitting elbow to elbow with eight foot tall giant scientists and equally giant but also grey skinned, armored beings that were, centuries ago, engineered to be soldiers. Then they made their way to the passenger quarters. The captain had announced that when they woke in a few scant hours, they would be approaching Mars.

What used to be a six to nine month long journey for unmanned drones was, these days, accomplished in 18 hours in a star cruiser.

Hopper fell into step with Taylor and took his hand, lacing their fingers. He did that now, reaching to touch no matter where they were or who could see. It still made Taylor's heart race.

Taylor led him to his private bunk. Soon as the door zipped closed behind them, they were kissing. They barely fit in the bunk together but they made it work.

When they were satisfied, Taylor relaxed into the curve of Hopper's arm with a sigh. Hopper chuckled and kissed his forehead. "Let's not wait two thousand years before we do that again."

Taylor laughed, lacing their fingers once more. "Deal."


End file.
